CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Illinois men’s tennis finished the 2022 fall tennis schedule in Gainesville, Florida, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, from Nov. 4-6.
Hunter Heck, Kenta Miyoshi and Oliver Okonkwo competed in the Gator Invite while Tyler Bowers, Nic Meister, Mathis Debru and Lucas Horve competed in the Big Ten Singles and Doubles Championships.
Gator Invite
Because of the uneven amount of players, Miyoshi teamed up with UCF’s Emilio Sanchez for doubles play. The duo defeated mixed school pair Will Grant (Florida)/Connor Krug (Duke) 8-7, before bowing out to Jonah Braswell/Lukas Greif in the next round, 8-6. In the back draw, Miyoshi/Sanchez took on Miami’s (Fla.) Antonio Prat/Martin Vergara Del Puerto. The score was not recorded.
Heck and Okonkwo teamed up to defeat Auburn’s Raul Dobai/Jan Galka, 8-5, before dropping the next round’s match to UCF’s Bogdan Pavel/Lleyton Cronje, 8-5. The pair entered the back draw against North Florida’s Breno Marques/PJ Kotan, beating the Osprey’s, 8-5.
In singles, Heck took his first round win in a 6-2, 6-2 sweep against UCF’s Quinn Snyder. Heck continued his success with a 7-6 (5), 6-2 win over Duke’s Krug before losing the next match, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1, to Florida’s Nate Bonetto.
Okonkwo dropped his first match to Florida’s Togan Tokac, 6-0, 6-2, in the first day of singles matches. The transfer then entered the back draw where he picked up three wins: 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 over UCF’s Bogdan Pavel, and 7-6,6-2 against UCF’s Snyder.
Miyoshi also dropped his first match, a three set battle to Duke’s Andrew Dale, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1. In the back draw, Miyoshi lost his match to North Florida’s Rodrigo Crespo, 2-6,7-5, 6-4. Miyoshi then played in the consolation matches, winning his first one against Auburn’s Spencer Gray, 6-2, 7-5, and dropping his second, 0-6, 6-2, 7-6 (4), to North Florida’s Leonard Bierbaum.
B1G Singles and Doubles Championships
Debru and Horve began the day with a 8-4 doubles win against Nebraska’s William Gleason/Lars Johann before bowing out to Indiana’s Jagger Saylor/Luka Vukovic, 8-5.
Meister and Bowers dropped both their doubles matches: first to Nishanth Basavareddy/Luc Boulier, 8-5 and then to Mihailo Popovic/Jared Pratt, 8-5.
Bowers picked up a 1-6, 6-2, 6-4 singles win against Purdue’s Michal Wozniak and a 6-4, 6-3 win against Indiana’s Michael Andre….
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